Brain Boost: Easy Ways to Train Your Mind

You ever meet someone who was beautiful, attractive and confident and then they open their mouth to talk...All that glitters ain't gold! Great conversations, passionate debates, thoughtful insights are just some signs of a beautiful brain.

Here are some things you can do to improve your cognitive skills and overall "brain power"! 

Reading Exercises:

1. Read more than one book at a time and different types (fiction, non fiction). This helps your brain improve it's multitasking capacity.

2. Read something for ten minutes and then grab a piece of paper and detail what you read. Compare notes. What did you miss? Keep doing this and watch your memory retention grow. 

3. If you want to go the extra mile ask yourself questions about the material you just read.Questions such as; What concepts have been discussed? What are the applications in the real world? What if you changed one significant event in a characters life? How do you they will do things differently? Has the book changed your preception and how?

Questions like these will require higher order thinking skills. You will be able to analyze pieces of information and bring them together to solve problems, make accurate assumptions and better decisions. Why do you think we had to do book reports in grade school or essay analysis in high school or critical thinking projects in college?

Writing Exercises

1. Try writing a creative short story. Build a character profile with a background story, personality traits, dialogue patterns and physical attributes. This will improve your attention to detail and creativity.

2. Write out a sales pitch for yourself. Think of yourself as a product. What are your features, benefits and what objections would people have when hiring you? Then write out the rebuttals or goals to improve those objectionable traits

This exercise is cool because you get a self analysis and a self improvement plan. You will never have a problem answering questions about your strengths and weaknesses in an interview!

Physical Exercises:

Work out! It helps clear your brain, produces adrenaline which promotes heightened clarity and chemical balance. 

Coffee:

Drinking coffee in moderation helps jump start your brain on those slow mornings.

Diet:

Eat brain food! Almonds, walnuts, complex carbs like whole grains and wild salmon can have some incredible impact on the brain.

Play:

Games like Sudoku, Tetris and Chess have known to improve your strategic thinking, spatial analysis and logic.

Draw:

You can doodle stick figures all you want but try sketching a real life objects. Try to replicate the same shades, angles and perspective. You will improve your spatial analysis, hand-eye coordination and creative thinking skills. Plus it can be extremely relaxing for some.

Quick Tip:

You will retain up to 95% of information you read, hear, or see IF you teach it to someone else. 

7 Ways To Drink More Water When You Don't Like It

It's not easy to drink 2 liters of water when you like water, let alone when you don't exactly enjoy drinking the stuff.

Water is good for you. Water is amazing for you. Water. Water. Water... Easier said than done! I was too lazy to keep drinking so much water. It made me feel full and bloated and I didn't like the taste. So I stuck to soda, juice, coffee and everything that wasn't pure water. 

So here's what worked for me. I tricked myself in to it. I didn't force myself so if I didn't stick to the plan, I tried again the next day.

I started by drinking flavored water: Crystal Light, Mio, Gatorade..etc. I needed less and less as time went on till I started enjoying plain water. I kept water accessible (a bottle near every window will stay cool...some days even freeze but hey I live in Canada!) and yes I was THAT lazy. I also found that I liked my water a certain temperature so I found ways to keep it that way. I don't enjoy COLD water. I don't enjoy room temperature. I like COOL water. Enough that it's refreshing but not so cold that I can't drink a whole glass in one shot. Results I went from 2 glasses a day to about 1 glass every 2 hours - more if I work out.

This will not work for everyone but here are some tricks you can try:

1. Flavored water

2. Tea - use raspberry, green, lemon or any other tea you might like. Make a lot at once and let it cool in a glass jar. You'll get additional benefits from this.

3. Smaller amounts. Start with drinking half or a quarter glass every hour and increase as your body gets used to it.

4. Drink water when you feel hunger. It's probably thirst you're feeling but your body recognizes it as hunger.

5. Do thirty jumping jacks till you get thirsty. (exercise and water in one shot!)

6. Play with the temperature. You may not like water because you haven't found your ideal temperature. Remember this is about preference...your body is designed to like water so whenever you find a form of water that appeals to your taste buds your body will thank you!

7. Bloating from water is sometimes hard to avoid at first but keep doing it till your body learns to expel water at the same time. Side effect: you will pee a lot! Your pee should be the colour of lemonade or almost clear when you drink enough.

These may or may not work for you but the bottom line is, at some point you're going to have recognize that the benefits you get will waaaay outweigh the effort. This will be worth it. So here are benefits that may motivate:

Weight Loss - You will. I have and water helps.

Metabolism boost - I know a lot of people who have experienced this. I  have been regularly working out and trying to eat healthy so I have noticed that my metabolism is more active (I get hungry a lot more often and have to eat smaller meals more often) but cannot just chalk it up to water alone.

Detox - This benefit I noticed one hundred percent. Everything feels clean and light inside. I don't know how else to describe the feeling.

Balanced mood and clarity - My husband doesn't hide from me anymore. Joking...It's a joke. 

Healthier Skin - I have extremely dry skin and seasonal eczema. It's winter so I can't say. I also live in a city known for it's dry conditions.

Happy Drinking...Water! Please share if you enjoyed this post. 

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